May 12, 2025

 Alison Laird

best practices flexible resourcing legal operations law firm cost savings

An unspoken consequence of the buzz around GenAI and the flood of announcements touting new ‘AI-powered’ products (whether merely planned or actually available) is the intensified anxiety at law firms about jumping into the race to innovate and automate. But rather than sprint to embrace the latest technology, law firm leaders should step back and remember that, above all, clients are still looking for something far simpler – excellent, responsive, and cost-effective service.

This enduring priority of clients should reassure any nervous law firms, because quite often the fastest, most cost-effective way to improve service is to refine what we already have rather than leaping headlong into innovation initiatives. Firms have an array of options to get back to basics, including separating core legal practice from operational legal services, right-sourcing tasks, and optimising teams’ time for what truly matters. This approach isn’t about resisting change; it’s about starting with the low-hanging fruit and making the right sort of changes – the ones that drive real value for clients and teams alike.

Legal Practice vs. Legal Services: What’s the Difference and Why It Matters

The intense focus on legal tech diverts attention from the nuts and bolts of legal service delivery – the foundational components of what clients want (and need!) now and that teams can act on immediately. Legal practice and legal services are intertwined, but they play very different roles in law firm success. Legal practice is what lawyers have trained for – advising, strategising, representing clients. Legal services are the activities that keep things running smoothly, from document processing to data analysis. Legal practice is what firms provide; legal services are how they provide it. Both are essential in firm success, and each has its own place in delivering value.

The line between legal practice and legal services is often blurred, with lawyers juggling both client-facing work and operational and administrative tasks. Obviously, every moment spent on operations is less time (typically less billable time) for practicing law. As more than one law firm lawyer has lamented, ‘I didn’t go to law school to review pre-bills.’ That’s correct – and points to the easiest and fastest way for a law firm to increase the value it delivers.

Right-Sourcing in Action: Why it’s Worth the Effort

Disaggregating legal practice and legal service is straightforward: you shift routine, process-driven tasks from practitioners to specialised providers adept at leveraging economies of scale and lower-cost geographies, best practices and optimal processes, and legal tech and technical know-how. The goal is to have the right people doing the right tasks at the right price.

To a certain extent, practically every law firm lawyer understands this approach – it’s why you don’t (with exceedingly rare exceptions, perhaps) assign fifth-year associates to do basic document review. The goal is to have your practitioners spend as much of their time as possible on the highest-value work they can perform – work for which they leverage their legal skills (as opposed to operational, clerical, and administrative capabilities) and legal knowledge to create the greatest possible benefit for clients.

This is right-sourcing – and it’s the crux of maximising your firm’s value for clients. Right-sourcing quickly delivers five benefits that add to client satisfaction:

1. Speed and Efficiency
   With non-core tasks managed externally or automated, lawyers can focus on delivering strategic advice and solutions, speeding up response times and decision-making.
2. Lower Costs
   Routine work doesn’t need to be done by top legal talent – and right-sourcing lets you allocate these tasks to lower-cost providers, reducing costs while maintaining quality.
3. Better Quality
   By leveraging third-party providers that apply best practices and optimised processes for things like eDiscovery, data analytics, or even managed legal services for routine tasks, you ensure high-quality results in those activities. Moreover, you get the best from your practitioners, with them focused on complex matters commensurate with their expertise and experience rather than consumed with run-of-the-mill work.
4. Greater Scalability and Flexibility
   Right-sourcing offers a flexible approach to resource management, allowing teams to scale up or down as client demands shifts – a game-changer for teams with unpredictable workloads.
5. A Competitive Edge
   Clients appreciate a responsive, efficient legal team that doesn’t sacrifice quality for speed. By delivering on these expectations, you create stronger relationships with existing clients and gain a competitive edge in pursuing prospective ones.

The payoff is clients pleased by receiving greater value from your law firm. In Part II of this series, I’ll detail the steps involved in and best practices for right-sourcing. As that post will make clear, right-sourcing is a fast and easy way to boost the value your firm delivers, without the time, expense, and effort that grand innovation initiatives require. In the meantime, remember: the best way to win a race often is to side-step it entirely.